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This article first appeared on Nov. 20, 2012. It will probably still be equally important on Nov. 20, 2032.
The season starting with Thanksgiving and lasting until New Year's has become America's unofficial Long-Term Care Need Assessment Period.
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Jesse Slome, executive director of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI), has put out a guide to assessing the well-being of parents and other older relatives that could be useful both to consumers and their retirement and LTCI advisors.
Slome said adult children or other caregiver candidates who live far from their loved ones and go home for the holidays should consider taking the following steps:
- Look for unopened mail, especially unpaid bills.
- See if the loved one has lost weight, and see if the refrigerator or pantry are full of spoiled food.
- Prepare a list of medications being taken and physician contact information.
- Write down the make, model and license plate number for the loved one's car.
- Write down the policy number and claim department contact information for any long-term care insurance (LTCI) policy that might be available.
Slome noted that LTCI carriers get a 15 percent increase in questions about benefits during the period following the holidays.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
